


Purple Burst of Paper Birds

by Macremae



Category: EOS 10 (Podcast)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Winged Humans AU, preening
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-13
Updated: 2015-12-13
Packaged: 2018-05-06 14:18:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5420246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Macremae/pseuds/Macremae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The daily routine of preening oneself was always sort of lost on Ryan. Certain not-terrorists consider this a plus.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Purple Burst of Paper Birds

**Author's Note:**

> Written because we need some new Ryanmazian in this small community of losers. Big thanks to sadhipstercat for being a fantastic beta!

It had been made abundantly clear on numerous occasions that Akmazian despised the food court’s iced tea.

Having grown up in the deepest, most farmland-covered part of Mars there was, he had experienced all the wonders of what the “new south” had to offer, even if said wonders were laced with the lingering aftertaste of Christians Ruining Things. One of those magnificent things was Proper Iced Tea; which was said with such seriousness that it really just had to be capitalized. The trick, he had explained, was to put the sugar (which should be at least enough to incapacitate a small child) in the tea before the actual tea-making was done. That way, the sugar dissolved because of the heat, and actually did what it was supposed to do--sweeten the tea. If it was added in after the fact, the sugar would just sort of float around uselessly and invoke the intensely unpleasant feeling of drinking liquid sand.

Every single food court on EOS 10 made this heinous error, no matter how many times Akmazian had forced Levi to go and explain the process to them. Eventually, he had admitted defeat and resigned to pouring extra sugar packets into the lemonade. 

Keeping this in mind, Ryan had grabbed the usual four on his way out, and realized that he could maybe just stop and put the packets into the takeout box, instead of dropping them every other minute. Why he even bothered going the extra mile in the first place was a mystery, but the kind that was half solved and, as a result, providing information that Ryan did not want to think about. At all.

It was… complicated. The most glaring issue wasn’t the whole “he’s a he” thing; that had kind of been solved already during his holiday (although Ryan would never admit it). No, the problem was that Akmazian was the most annoying, flirtatious, self-assured person that he had ever met. Unfortunately, he was also thoughtful, charming, and not terrible looking. The fact that he seemed to be actually into Ryan, also didn’t help matters.

So yes, it was complicated.

The cargo bay had it’s usual empty appearance when he arrived, with only a small pile of bags tucked behind a few boxes to give any semblance of goings-on.

“Akmazian? It’s me.” he called into surrounding darkness, setting the food down by his feet. 

“I can tell,” came a voice from behind him. Ryan made a noise not unlike that of a cat being thrown into water, and jumped about a foot in the air.

“Holy Jesus- okay you have got to stop doing that,” he said breathlessly, folding his wings back in from their defensive spread.

Akmazian peered at them curiously. “Are your feathers always this ruffled?” he asked.

Ryan glared at him. “Only when I’m around you. And _not_ in the way you’re thinking of.”

“I’m flattered, really. They are a mess though. When’s the last time you preened ‘em?”

A flush spread to the tips of Ryan’s ears. “That’s personal!” he replied, and strained to see Akmazian’s wings in the darkness. “Besides, I mean, you probably haven’t been taking care of yours either.”

“Actually…” Akmazian smugly turned around to display his tawny set of neatly groomed feathers. “Would you look at that. You can now actually say your wings look worse than a fugitive’s.”

Ryan rolled his eyes, but curled one wing around to inspect it. His scapulars were sticking up in various directions, the primary and secondary converts were tangled in the marginals, and several of his primaries were frayed and broken. “Okay,” he admitted, “they do look kind of unkempt. I’ve just been busy lately.”

Akmazian smirked. “I’ll say. Want me to fix ‘em for you?”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Preen. Do you want me to preen them.”

Ryan weighed his options. On one hand, preening was an intimate thing. You had to trust whoever was responsible for taking care of your most delicate appendage, and was mostly done by oneself, or family members. On the other… it had been a _really_ long day.

“Fine.” he sighed, and sat cross legged on the bay’s floor. Akmazian settled down behind him and carefully pulled one wing into his lap. He began to tuck the rows of feathers back into their slots, beginning at the top with the scapulars and working his way down to the primaries. Ryan felt a soft pressure each time one was slid back into place, and the prickling itch of ruffled feathers slowly began to ebb. Akmazian’s hands were surprisingly gentle; even when he pulled out a broken feather, Ryan barely felt it. He had forgotten how nice it felt to have someone else preen him.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen pink wings before. Is it natural?” Akmazian asked, tucking a secondary in. Ryan gave a small hum in response. “Yeah, my sister and I have the same color, although I dyed my hair to match when I was younger. She still does, but just a few strands.”

“‘Didn’t know you had a sister.”

“Twin, actually. Her name’s Ellie; she’s a military officer. Drives me crazy, but I love her.”

“Lucky. I had too many brothers and sisters to count. They’ve all gone their own ways; pretending they’re not related to me. I check up on ‘em every so often.”

Unsure of what to say, Ryan gave him an awkward pat on the knee. “That, um… that sucks.” he said, “Sorry, I’m not really good at this kind of thing.”

Akmazian smiled and shrugged. “It’s the thought that counts. Thanks.”

They both lapsed back into comfortable silence, Ryan settling back against the other man’s chest. Tucked between a warm body and a wing, he began to drift off. 

Akmazian finished the first wing and moved onto the other. His mind wandered as he worked, going over a menagerie of details, and occasionally turning to the small person in front of him, who was now fast asleep and looking unfairly adorable. 

When he finished, he shifted position to stand up, but stopped when Ryan mumbled something incoherent and curled inward against him. A smile spread across Akmazian’s face, and he stretched out one wing to pull his sleeping bag closer. He then unzipped it out into a blanket and spread it over Ryan, curling his wings around the both of them. It had been a while since Akmazian had experienced this particular form of human contact, and he intended to savor it.

When Ryan opened his eyes the next morning, surprisingly comfortable considering he was in a chilly cargo bay, well, he decided that there were worse places to wake up.

Half solved indeed.


End file.
